Stiga A10v Review – Trusted Reviews

Design and features

• Works in gardens up to 1,000m²
• GPS-guided navigation and AI camera
• Setup not as simple as some competitors

The Stiga A10v starts at £1,469, making it one of the most expensive robot mowers in its class, and meaning it has a lot to prove to justify its price.

With the ability to mow an area up to 1,000m², for a number of you the A10v will be more than enough. Stiga has a number of bots in its A v-Series, so for those of you with smaller lawns, the A6v (600m², £1199) or A8v (800m², £1299) might be better, and they’re cheaper too.

And for those with large expanses of land, there’s the A25v, A50v, A100v and A1040v that can cover far bigger distances, but you’ll pay a premium for that additional range.

Open the box, and you’ll find the mower simply packaged and easy to remove. You get the mower, its base station, a power adaptor, stakes, spare blades (four), a quick start sheet and a manual.

The one page “quick start guide” isn’t as comprehensive as those from other manufacturers I’ve used, and really it’s not actually a quick start guide at all. Instead it lists what you get in the box, and then refers you to the manual and smartphone app. I’d have liked to have seen a few initial step pointers here, as the manual is a little dense.

The base station has a small section you need to clip on to cover the contact element from weather, but there’s no larger roof to cover the robot as well. If it rains, the A10v will get wet. Thankfully it’s waterproof, but it does mean it can get dirty quickly.

I was pleased to see a standard sized wall plug on the power cord though, allowing me to fit it snugly in my outdoor waterproof socket – some robo mowers have larger plug blocks that prevent me from closing the waterproof cover, which is a tad frustrating.

Something which stumped me initially was the safety key. It’s a small, yellow piece of plastic that sits in a slot under the mower’s top cover – but the manual doesn’t clearly state where it goes, or even that it’s essential to the operation of the A10v.

After half an hour of scratching my head as to why the mower wouldn’t power on, I returned to the box, found the key and, through trial and error, found where it needed to go. This is the sort of instruction that would have been helpful on the quick start guide.

Placement of the base station in your garden is very important, as it needs to have a clear view of the sky for the satellite connection to work. Don’t go placing it under a tree, or too close to walls that could block this aerial view.

You’ll also need 3 metres of space in front of the base station for the A10v to manoeuvre in and out. This meant I had to rearrange some of the furniture on my patio to give the bot enough space.

You’ll then need to take to the free STIGA.GO app to complete setup. This involves connecting the A10v to your Wi-Fi, installing any firmware updates, and, most importantly, mapping your garden.

Slightly frustratingly, even with its AI camera, you have to manually move the robot around the perimeter of your lawn. Other bots – such as those from Eufy and Terramow – can go off and map your garden without any human interference. The Stiga requires a human.

You remote control the mower from a touchscreen joystick on your phone. It works, but control doesn’t feel precise and it meant I struggled to drive it perfectly straight along the edges of my garden. For a perfectionist like me, the lack of fine control over the robot was a little frustrating.

Once you’ve completed the loop, you need to then record a path back to the base station by placing the mower 3 meters in front of it. Then you drive it straight ahead and onto the dock. Again, some rival mowers at a similar price can automatically find their way back to their base station, without the need to manually map a path.

Thankfully, once you have mapped your garden and its route back to base, you’re ready to mow.

The bot itself has a neat carry handle hidden behind the rear cover, providing an easy way to lift and carry the machine safely, keeping your hand well away from the blades underneath. It does have some heft to it, weighing in at around 9kg. Bend with your knees, folks.

And talking of blades, you’ll find four affixed to the single spinning disc on the base of the A10v, for a cutting width of 18cm. You get a full set of extra blades in the box, for when the first set loses their sharpness.

Another nice feature is the electric height adjustment, allowing you to easily select a height between 20mm and 60mm in the app, and the A10v will automatically oblige.

If the area you want cutting isn’t flat, the A10v might still be able to handle it, with the ability to traverse slopes of up to 45°. As it can cover 1000m², you don’t want it getting stuck when it’s some way from home.

A single charge is good for 210m² of cutting, so the A10v was able to mow my lawn without the need to return to the dock to replenish its battery.

In the app you can set dedicated cutting zones (up to 15 on the A10v), and non-cut zones (up to 80), if you want areas of your lawn to remain wild, or you want to avoid it getting too close to plants, a pool, or other garden furniture.

And when the weather turns unpredictable, the rain sensor on the mower will detect precipitation and return to base, so as not to risk issues in the middle of your lawn during a downpour.

Performance

• Great cutting performance
• More complicated lawns can confuse it
• Traversed uneven ground very well

Once you’ve got past the initial mapping palaver, the Stiga A10v goes about its work diligently. 

Its quiet operation – around 44dB when cutting, similar to a quiet library – means you can comfortably sit outside and not be disturbed by it cutting away. It’s much better than a traditional lawn mower in this sense, and the fact you’re not having to march up and down pushing it along.

The A10v methodically works across your lawn, doing a pretty good job at providing an even cut, although there was the odd strand of longer grass that it missed. Not enough to be a problem, but if you’re someone who inspects their lawn a little more closely you might find it bothersome.

The AI camera up front does a reasonable job of avoiding the trees and bird feeder I have in my lawn, as well as the cats roaming around, but it’s not perfect. It struggled to work out what to do with some plants close, but not against my fence – bumping into them and generally getting confused. 

I remapped my garden to avoid these areas more obviously, giving the A10v a simpler layout to tackle, which it excelled at mowing.

Don’t let your grass get too long though. Stiga says the A10v can only handle blades 60mm and shorter. Any longer, and they could get in the way of its camera and potentially clog the rotating blade mechanism.

If your lawn is looking rather long, give it a quick once over with a traditional mower on a high setting. You can then easily schedule the A10v for regular cuts in the app to prevent the grass from getting that long again.

Dive into the settings in the app and you’ll find further customization options. I quickly enabled Border cut, which has the A10v do a lap of the perimeter once it’s completed the main cut, to ensure you get neat edges.

Another useful, and fun feature is the custom cutting angle, allowing you to precisely dictate the direction of the lines the robot cuts in. I had fun trying different alignments – vertical, horizontal, diagonal – during different mows. It gave the garden a different look and feel with each different angle.

My lawn also isn’t the flattest, with various divots and undulations for the Stiga to traverse. It did so well, sometimes taking a moment to work out the best way to free itself from a particularly deep dip, but it never managed to get stuck.

Should you buy it?